Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On 2/18/19 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? If you've got another Unix-a-like (e.g. Linux works fine) machine kicking around with SCSI, it's possible to hack up some shell script to 'dd' blocks from the AIX machine's drive one by one, looking for stuff that looks like part of the password file. Then you can save them, edit them to make the data appear like a normal Unix passwd file (IBM being IBM, AIX in those days did things a little differently), and run one of the various password crackers on the result (e.g. JtR). That process worked for my 7043-140, anyway. I don't think that the filesystem for AIX that old is directly supported on anything, so you can't just mount it like I believe you can more modern releases. Of course if you have install media, then as someone else mentioned I believe there are ways of resetting it that way which are (probably) far easier :-) cheers Jules
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On 2/19/19 1:31 PM, Jules Richardson via cctech wrote: On 2/18/19 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? If you've got another Unix-a-like (e.g. Linux works fine) machine kicking around with SCSI, it's possible to hack up some shell script to 'dd' blocks from the AIX machine's drive one by one, looking for stuff that looks like part of the password file. Then you can save them, edit them to make the data appear like a normal Unix passwd file (IBM being IBM, AIX in those days did things a little differently), and run one of the various password crackers on the result (e.g. JtR). That process worked for my 7043-140, anyway. I don't think that the filesystem for AIX that old is directly supported on anything, so you can't just mount it like I believe you can more modern releases. Of course if you have install media, then as someone else mentioned I believe there are ways of resetting it that way which are (probably) far easier :-) Thanks. I am all set now. I got a pointer to AIX 4.3.3 iso images and have been able to do a fresh install on the system. I also have a Model 150 that I need to go through and I think the AIX iso images will work for that as well. I haven't touched AIX in decades, so it did kinda hurt trying to wrap my brain around it again. alan cheers Jules
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
Alan Perry via cctech wrote: The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? alan Last year I started working on a 7012-320H that I've had for some time; it would not boot AIX, but it would stall during boot up before bringing up the console. People in this list and elsewhere made many useful suggestions. I made the proper serial cabling, no console. Finally, I was able to boot in system maintenance mode from boot AIX 3.2.5 diskettes that I found on the net, and got a console. I then discovered that the hard drive had 3.1.005 in it; still, managed to replace the /etc/security/passwd file (using just cat and cp, there's no ls or ed in the maintenance shell) with a version that had the root password removed. The system booted now, except that it would not mount /usr, because there wasn't an /etc/mount binary. After examining an image of the hard drive, I noticed that the binary for /etc/unmount had error messages for mounting operations, had this hunch that /etc/mount was the same binary as /etc/unmount, copied the latter to the former, and voila, I had a booting system. You should be able to do the same if you can boot from a CD. Since then I added a second hard drive (the original was just 400mb), and I have been trying to build a toolchain and numeric processing programs. I was able to build gcc-2.7.2 after building an early gmake with the system's cc even though the assembler in 3.1.005 has a known bug, then I built binutils-2.9.1 (the last version that will build ld on AIX 3.1.005), and then I succesfully built gcc-2.95.3 configured to use binutils and not the system's ld and as. The last version of gcc supported on 3.1.005 is 3.3.6, but the build process fails early on at the dreaded gengtype stage with the usual "running out of memory" error (this is something that also happens under SunOS 4.1.4; my IPXs are at 2.95.3 too). So, I'm stuck at 2.95.3, but I've managed to build at least some things with it; right now I have: autoconf-2.59, bash-2.05b, binutils-2.9.1, bison-1.50, bpmpd-2.30, bvi-1.3.2, bzip2-1.0.2, fftw-3.3.7, flex-2.5.4, glpk-4.45, glpk-4.65, gawk-3.0.4, gmp-4.2.4, gnuplot-4.4.4, gperf-2.7.2, groff-1.10, gsl-2.1, gzip-1.3.12, jpeg-8d, lapack-3.1.1, libgd-2.0.33, libpng-1.4.22, m4-1.4.1, make-3.81, mpfr-3.1.6, ncurses-5.2, patch-2.5.9, pcre-6.7, perl-5.6.2, qhull-2009, qrupdate-1.1.2, readline-4.2, rx-1.5, screen-4.0.3, sed-3.0.2, texinfo-4.0, tiff-3.9.7, vim-5.8, zlib-1.2.3. I had to modify the source in most of them. I have built a python-2.2.3 executable but right now it fails when importing modules, and I have been trying to build several versions of octave without success. Most issues have to do with ancient system libs, ancient c++ grammar in gcc-2.95.3, a nonstandard dynamic loading mechanism, lack of UNIX98 features, and general senescence in this system. But I like it anyway. I wish I had a network card. Sometime in the future I will configure a SLIP server with an old linux box or a raspberry and try to network the thing. carlos.
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
Thanks. It has been reported that Solaris 2.5.1 does work with the 604e, which the 7043-140 has, so I will be looking for another box to run 2.5.1 PPC on. I worked for Sun on Solaris back when the PPC port was done (and work for Oracle now on Solaris). I asked among Solaris folks (current and former) about PPC compilers and “possibly gcc 2.95 otherwise cross compiling” was suggested. alan > On Feb 19, 2019, at 3:09 AM, Rico Pajarola wrote: > >> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 6:49 PM Alan Perry via cctech >> wrote: > >> >> Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a >> mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? >> >> I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot > #wrong43p > > Solaris 2.5.1 PPC doesn't work on that machine. > > I can't find the HCL doc, but according to the files present on the CD it > runs on: > > IBM 6040 (ThinkPad 820) > IBM 6042 (ThinkPad 850) > IBM 6015 (PowerSeries 440, 7020-40P) > IBM 6050 (PowerSeries 830, 7248-43P) > IBM 6070 (PowerSeries 850, 7248-43P) > IBM 7248 (43P-100, 43P-120, 43P-132) > Motorola PowerStack Series DT/E/MT > > The 7248-43P is substantially different from a 7043-140 "43P". I have it > running on a PowerStack Series E. > > Did anyone ever unearth the Sun compiler for that? > > >> floppy by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I >> dd'ed the image over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could >> read back what it had written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is >> on the floppy, but hangs transferring control to what it loaded. >> >> The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the >> Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the >> 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried >> NetBSD. The 7043-140 is listed as a supported system. >> >> The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too >> large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make >> boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install >> instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a >> 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have >> e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. >> >> The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this >> is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. >> >> Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? >> >> alan >>
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 6:49 PM Alan Perry via cctech wrote: > > Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a > mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? > > I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot > #wrong43p Solaris 2.5.1 PPC doesn't work on that machine. I can't find the HCL doc, but according to the files present on the CD it runs on: IBM 6040 (ThinkPad 820) IBM 6042 (ThinkPad 850) IBM 6015 (PowerSeries 440, 7020-40P) IBM 6050 (PowerSeries 830, 7248-43P) IBM 6070 (PowerSeries 850, 7248-43P) IBM 7248 (43P-100, 43P-120, 43P-132) Motorola PowerStack Series DT/E/MT The 7248-43P is substantially different from a 7043-140 "43P". I have it running on a PowerStack Series E. Did anyone ever unearth the Sun compiler for that? floppy by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I > dd'ed the image over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could > read back what it had written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is > on the floppy, but hangs transferring control to what it loaded. > > The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the > Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the > 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried > NetBSD. The 7043-140 is listed as a supported system. > > The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too > large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make > boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install > instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a > 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have > e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. > > The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this > is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. > > Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? > > alan > >
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
> On Feb 18, 2019, at 4:42 PM, Alan Perry wrote: > … > Yes, it has a CD drive. Do you recall what month the discussion was so I know > where to start looking in the list archive? > > It sounds as if Solaris doesn't run on the 604e in the 43p/7043 (I will never > understand IBM model designations); I just want to make the system usable at > this point. > > alan Alan, it was February last year (2018), probably Feb 1 - Feb. 3. The short story for how to do this is presented at: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1000366 I did need to obtain an IBMid to read the web page completely, and I started with a CD labelled “AIX V4.2.1 for 5765-C34”. As you will see if you read the thread, subject "Password reset for ~1998 AIX on RS/6000?”, other alternatives exist, but this was all I needed. Hope this helps! Let me know if you need any other pointers. - Mark
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On 2/18/19 1:55 PM, Tapley, Mark wrote: On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot floppy by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I dd'ed the image over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could read back what it had written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is on the floppy, but hangs transferring control to what it loaded. The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried NetBSD. The 7043-140 is listed as a supported system. The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? alan CAUTION: This email originated from outside SwRI and it may contain attachments and/or links. Do not open attachments or click on links unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Alan, does the machine also have a CD drive? I got a *lot* of help fast from this list last year while resetting root and user passwords on one of those machines by using the first CD of the AIX install set. I guess that won’t help toward solaris but at least you could run AIX. - Mark Yes, it has a CD drive. Do you recall what month the discussion was so I know where to start looking in the list archive? It sounds as if Solaris doesn't run on the 604e in the 43p/7043 (I will never understand IBM model designations); I just want to make the system usable at this point. alan
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On 2/18/19 12:20 PM, r.stricklin wrote: On Feb 18, 2019, at 9:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible they aren't. solaris doesn't support the 7043 at all. in fact, it doesn't support the 604e at all. if you upgrade the 604 in the 7248 (a supported machine) to a 604e (an official upgrade) solaris stops working. Interesting. How did you learn this? I don't doubt it. Was this announced or determined experimentally? alan ok bear.
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
> On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech > wrote: > > > Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a > mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? > > I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot floppy > by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I dd'ed the image > over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could read back what it had > written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is on the floppy, but hangs > transferring control to what it loaded. > > The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris > 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is > a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried NetBSD. The 7043-140 > is listed as a supported system. > > The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to > fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies > out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went > ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot > that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list > and no response from that. > > The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a > recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. > > Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? > > alan > > CAUTION: This email originated from outside SwRI and it may contain > attachments and/or links. Do not open attachments or click on links unless > you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Alan, does the machine also have a CD drive? I got a *lot* of help fast from this list last year while resetting root and user passwords on one of those machines by using the first CD of the AIX install set. I guess that won’t help toward solaris but at least you could run AIX. - Mark
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 09:49:30AM -0800, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: > > Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 > (a mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? > [...] > The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too > large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to > make boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the > install instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that > fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that > failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response > from that. > > The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but > this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for > that install. > > Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? I have not much of idea about RS6000 but had a peek around netbsd.org and they have page about running NetBSD on emulators of various kind. So you may want to experiment with prep emulator, which seems to be GXemul: http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/emulators.html http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/emulators.html#gxemul and, for example, see if said floppy images boot at all. A casual check of generic.fs gives me this: => (591 12): curl -O 'https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-8.0/prep/installation/floppy/generic.fs' % Total% Received % Xferd Average Speed TimeTime Time Current Dload Upload Total SpentLeft Speed 100 2597k 100 2597k0 0 3251k 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 3588k => (591 13):file generic.fs generic.fs: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x41, active, starthead 0, startsector 0, 2879 sectors, code offset 0x0 You have new mail in /var/mail/tomek => (591 14): fdisk -l generic.fs Disk generic.fs: 2 MB, 2659840 bytes 2 heads, 18 sectors/track, 144 cylinders, total 5195 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System generic.fs1 * 028781439+ 41 PPC PReP Boot -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 12:49 PM Alan Perry via cctech < cct...@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a > mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? > > The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too > large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make > boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install > instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a > 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have > e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. > I'd strongly suggest setting up a netboot server. You'll need dhcp/bootp and tftp, but it's way better than trying to deal with floppy disks and floppy booting. I've used it succesfully for NetBSD and Linux on a '140. I never tried Solaris, because I have no interest in Solaris, but it should work the same there. Pat
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On Feb 18, 2019, at 9:49 AM, Alan Perry via cctech wrote: > The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris > 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is > a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible they aren't. solaris doesn't support the 7043 at all. in fact, it doesn't support the 604e at all. if you upgrade the 604 in the 7248 (a supported machine) to a 604e (an official upgrade) solaris stops working. ok bear. -- until further notice
Re: RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
On 2/18/19 10:42 AM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 12:49 PM Alan Perry via cctech mailto:cct...@classiccmp.org>> wrote: Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. I'd strongly suggest setting up a netboot server. You'll need dhcp/bootp and tftp, but it's way better than trying to deal with floppy disks and floppy booting. I've used it succesfully for NetBSD and Linux on a '140. I never tried Solaris, because I have no interest in Solaris, but it should work the same there. Thanks. I prefer floppy because I am usually putting systems back together away from a network connection. But, if that is what it takes to get an usable OS onto the system, I guess I will cobble together the pieces to do that. But now I am more inclined to install Solaris on it :) alan Pat
RS/6000 7043-140 boot floppies
Is there some trick to making boot floppies for the RS/6000 7043-140 (a mid-90s PReP architecture machine)? I initially tried to install Solaris 2.5.1 on it and created the boot floppy by dd'ing the image using a SPARCstation (running NetBSD). I dd'ed the image over, dd'ed it back and verified the SPARCstation could read back what it had written to the floppy. The RS/6000 loads what is on the floppy, but hangs transferring control to what it loaded. The 7043-140 does not appear on the list of supported systems in the Solaris 2.5.1 release notes, so, even though 2.5.1 supports PReP and the 7043-140 is a PReP machine, maybe they aren't compatible, so I tried NetBSD. The 7043-140 is listed as a supported system. The NetBSD boot floppy images are confusing to me. The files are too large to fit on a 1.44M floppy. I didn't see instructions on how to make boot floppies out of the .fs files one can download in the install instructions. I went ahead and tried to dd the part that fits onto a 1.44M floppy and try to boot that and of course that failed. I have e-mailed the NetBSD prep mailing list and no response from that. The system does boot the AIX install on one of its hard disks, but this is a recycled system and I don't have usernames/passwords for that install. Does anyone here have a suggestion on how to proceed? alan
